This framework was prepared to provide decision-makers and adaptation implementers such as (local) government officials, development experts and civil society representatives with a structured approach and a sourcebook for assessing vulnerability to climate change. Furthermore, it provides a selection of methods and tools to assess the different componentsthat contribute to a system’s vulnerability to climate change. Key questions to be addressed are:

• How to plan for a vulnerability assessment?• Which tools or methods to select to carry out a vulnerability assessment?• How to carry out a vulnerability assessment?

The reader will first be acquainted with the theoretical background behind the concept of vulnerability. Next, two broad approaches for assessing vulnerability will be introduced: Vulnerability assessments can be carried out either at a local level using participatory methods and tools as well local climate data (bottom-up assessments) or at state, national or global level using large-scale simulation models and statistical methods (top-down assessments).

The introduction to the concept of vulnerability is followed by the main framework consisting of four different stages for assessing a system’s vulnerability to climate change. Each stage in the vulnerability assessment consists of steps that specify which kinds of analyses should be carried out in that stage. Every step contains a set of guiding questions and a listof suggested methods and tools that can be used to answer these questions.

Each stage of the framework is followed by two practical examples of vulnerability assessments carried out in India: A bottom-up vulnerability assessment carried out at the outset of a GIZ supported climate change adaptation project and a top-down vulnerability assessment carried out for the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as a whole.

Finally, the reader is presented with an extensive yet not exhaustive selection of methods and tools that can be used to assess the components of vulnerability to climate change at different levels.